This is not a weather satellite picture: it was taken by the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter when it was 400,000 km (240,000 miles) from Earth! It shows the fully-illuminated Earth on August 9, 2010. You can clearly see North and South America, and the cloud patterns are lovely.

I know, it's a grayscale image and not color, but sometimes that makes a picture even more lovely; your eye isn't distracted by the different hues. And I do love shots of our home planet from space.

Get the hi-res version here.

Image Credit: NASA/GSFC/Arizona State University